


Imaginings and Incantations

by Gryphonrhi



Category: Highlander: The Series
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-27
Updated: 2010-02-27
Packaged: 2017-10-07 14:32:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/66060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gryphonrhi/pseuds/Gryphonrhi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if it wasn't Methos who can't commit or change his ways? Duncan/Methos first time, aka "The Ubiquitous Mr. Lovegrove" fic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Imaginings and Incantations

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sleeps With Coyotes](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Sleeps+With+Coyotes).



> Disclaimers: Caffeine may cause irritability, depression, insomnia... Oh. Wrong disclaimers, huh? I suppose we'll settle for the usual: not mine, not mine, not mine. Not the characters nor the lyrics, but the story on the other hand.... (Oh, and no, this is no part of Aidan's universe, or any other series I'm writing. It's a stand-alone piece.)  
> Rated: R for language and intentions, although there is no innuendo in this thing.   
> Dedication: To Sleeps With Coyotes, for more reasons than I can count, not least being the lovely slashy card she sent me. Enjoy, dearheart. This one is for you. 

"This can't possibly work."

For a moment, Duncan's heart sank and for some absurd reason he remembered watching the gypsy fortune-teller's hand as she turned over the Tower. Seeing the people falling to their deaths, even on a paper card, had chilled him then, and Methos' words chilled him now.

"Why not?" was the only retort he could force out through lips that still burned. Even those two words took too much effort and left him adrift on a haze of whiskey and worry.

Pitying green-gold eyes weighed him and found him wanting. Methos reached for his coat and said gently, "MacLeod. It's late, and I think we've both had too much to drink tonight. I'm going home."

"You don't have a home," Duncan replied bitterly. "You have a domestic graveyard."

Methos' mouth tightened, thin lips compressing to an even thinner line as he strove to control his temper and temper his remarks. "Good night, MacLeod. I'm getting out of here before we destroy what little friendship we have left."

Duncan had to stop thinking about the other man's lips, stop looking at them. That was already part of the problem. "Methos, damn it, what do you think I meant?" Duncan asked tiredly, dropping onto the couch. He didn't look up, though, weighted down with raised hopes. He could only reach blindly for his glass and wait to hear the door slam.

Instead he heard a thoughtful voice comment, "Congratulations, Highlander. Now I'm not at all sure what you meant. Of course, after that much whiskey, you may not be sure either." Methos didn't drop his coat back over the chair, but on the other hand, the door hadn't closed, either.

"You're burying yourself under 'Adam Pierson' is what I meant," Duncan explained quietly, his words flowing forth in cadence with the slow rocking of the barge on the Seine. "It's not just the fights we've had, you know. At least you were alive for those. But every time you come back from an estate sale or a bookseller's convention, you're less... there. No caustic remarks on history done wrong, on archaeologists who don't know a chamber pot from a burial urn, on my taste in music or Joe's inability to find a Watcher you can't dump in less than an hour. Even the Parisians complain about the politics, but you won't even rise to that."

"I've seen it all, Mac, at least ten times before."

Still Duncan didn't hear departing footsteps; he took that as a positive sign. "Or more," the Scot agreed as his fingers interlocked around the cut-glass tumbler. "So why are you running this time?"

"One drunken pass from a youngster who's not even sure what he wants, and you think I'm running?"

"You were the one who headed for the door," Duncan pointed out quietly as he watched the reflected fire dance redly in golden Scotch. "And who said I don't know what I want? I want you."

"You don't even know me, MacLeod."

"When have you let me, Methos?" Duncan glanced up finally, brown eyes dark in the low light. It might have been the whiskey that dilated his eyes and roughened his voice, or it might have been the leashed passion slowly buried under confusions and doubts, misunderstandings and misinterpretations. "You tell me I don't know you, don't accept you. Did it ever occur to you, old man, that you're projecting?"

"What, I don't understand a man who lives and dies for honor and will lose his head for it one of these days... if his women don't get him killed first?" Methos jammed his hands into his jeans pockets, but his stance was shifting slowly from its usual hip-shot casualness to an upright alertness such as Duncan hadn't seen since Bordeaux.

That did get a smile from Duncan, amused and ironic as anything Methos might have leveled at him. "Is this about women, then?"

"I was talking about you."

The Highlander watched him and saw to his surprise that for once Methos was almost shivering with anticipation or nerves. Which one was vitally important, but Duncan didn't know how to determine which it was. "No, Methos," he said firmly. "You were discussing what you think you know about me. And you were running."

"If I stayed," Methos told him slowly, green-gold eyes intent and shading slowly towards brown, "come morning, you'd be the one running."

"Methos, where did you get the idea I run out on my lovers at the end of the night?" Duncan stared at him, willing him to see just how serious he was. "It's Amanda who leaves, not me."

"MacLeod, you're so damned straight that the only curves you've ever noticed are on women. Why should I believe you wouldn't run in the morning?"

"For one thing," Duncan answered him, tallying his points with empty beer bottles that were serving no other useful purpose on his coffee table, "we're on my barge. I live here, remember?" A second bottle moved forward to join the first as he added, "And I guarantee, Methos, I've noticed quite a few curves that aren't on women. Why did you assume that I'm that narrow-minded? Or are the Watcher records that full of holes?"

For once Duncan had the pleasure of seeing Methos startled and unguarded. It was only a brief flash of surprise, regret, maybe irritation, that flashed through those darkening eyes, but he filed it away in memory for the sleepless night he foresaw in his immediate future. Then Methos' mask slid back into place with one elegantly raised eyebrow and with it that familiar, mocking smile. Duncan had to repress the overwhelming urge, again, to kiss that smile off Methos' face so that he could discover what real emotions lay beneath it.

"Now that you mention it," Methos commented as dryly as if the answer meant nothing at all, "they are. Assuming of course that you aren't simply trying to get me to stay." But his shoulders had tensed under his loose-cut shirt and the corded tendons of his neck were more prominent now.

The whiskey burned sharply through Duncan's blood, heated and ignited by suppressed desire. The combination made him reckless enough to chuckle and ask, "What? By claiming experience you don't think I have? You could always give me a test run."

"You're drunk, MacLeod," came the harsh reply, but Methos' words couldn't disguise the flare of arousal that had crossed his face.

"Ah, so now you're claiming I'll regret this in the morning." Duncan snorted at that piece of idiocy. "I'm not so drunk, Methos, that I can't see you're trying to manipulate me into letting you leave."

"You do run, Duncan MacLeod. When have you lived even ten years in one place?" Methos asked caustically.

"When have you?" Duncan countered as he leaned forward again, chest tight around dread and hope so intermingled he thought they'd choke him.

"More times than you'd think." Methos stared at him then spoke so softly the profanity seemed an incantation. "Fuck this." Very deliberately he asked, "How long have we known each other, MacLeod?"

"Four years. March 6, 1995. Why?" Duncan fastened his gaze on his glass, wondering if more whiskey would help or hurt.

"Grayson. Amanda. Kalas. Kristin. Keane. Do you know what all of them have in common?"

Duncan straightened up indignantly and glanced up in time to meet those sharp, sharp eyes. "You tell me. You made that list."

"Each of them, Duncan MacLeod, has come close to losing you your head."

The Scot considered his statement and compared it to the slowly ebbing alcohol haze across his thoughts. "I don't think I'm that drunk," Duncan said at last. "Are we still on the same argument I started?"

Methos chuckled abruptly; it was a harsh sound with very little humor in it. "We're coming back to it, MacLeod, don't worry. I'm not FitzCairn, and I'm definitely not Amanda. I'm not interested in being your on-again, off-again fuck, to be dumped when Amanda's in town."

The Highlander sprawled back across the couch, reckless enough to achieve a fair approximation of Methos' usual boneless sprawl; he'd have to remember in the future that combining prolonged, low-grade arousal with alcohol turned his bones to Jell-O. "I don't remember ever offering to be your fuck-buddy, Methos. And what does that have to do with that list?"

"Everything," Methos told him grimly, standing there for once upright. There was none of 'Adam Pierson's' slouch or slumped shoulders in the man who dropped his terms into the dim, alcohol-painted night like a gauntlet. "Do I want you, MacLeod? Oh, yes. I've wanted you since the first day you walked into my apartment and never even noticed 'Adam Pierson.' Yes, I very badly want the man who sees me, not some name or identity I've taken on this month. But I'm not interested in a one-night stand, or even a one-year stand. I want you permanently or not at all."

Shock pinned Duncan against the leather, sure as Methos' sword would have been, heavy as his weight might have been on Duncan's body. Given that the rest of him wasn't working properly -- other than his cock, which had definitely heard that and was ignoring the alcohol -- Duncan was ridiculously proud of the level tone in which he asked, "Did I understand that correctly? You want marriage or nothing?"

"A church isn't exactly an option, you know," Methos commented dryly. "But no, Duncan, you didn't understand at all. Church, justice of the peace, blood bonds sworn under the full moon: I don't care. What I want is either to stay your friend, what little of that we've managed to keep and rebuild since Bordeaux, or to be yours and to have you, permanently. Put whatever ritual around it you like; I've used them all, I think. But I'm not interested in partial measures."

"You said once it was too much commitment," Duncan pointed out carefully, his eyes half-closed as he contemplated Methos from behind his eyelashes.

"It may be," Methos said softly, propping himself against the wall in a pose as indolent as Duncan's. Despite the apparent languor, he still managed to be menacing. "But this is one time when I'm not willing to walk in the grey areas, Highlander. Remember the story of the Little Mermaid, paying for her feet by walking on knives? That is very much what it is like never knowing from day to day if we are friends or near-enemies, whether your flirting means there is a chance I will share your bed or only get to see that dangled carrot." He glanced down Duncan's body and smiled wickedly for a moment. "A rather impressive carrot, I'll grant you," and the smile was gone again, "but I'll not be led around by it."

"Methos... what do you think you've been doing to me?" Duncan growled, absurdly angry. "You wander in and out of my house as if you lived there, stretch out on my couch or my bed, provocative enough to pull a statue off its pedestal. You flirt with me, weigh my cock and balls through my jeans anytime you don't think I'll see you looking -- did you think I'd missed it?"

"Then why," Methos hissed, eyes narrowed although he hadn't moved yet, "has it taken you four years to make a pass at me?"

"Because we've had the worst damn timing I've seen in decades?" Duncan retorted, although he refused to sit up. Instead he sank even farther into the couch, thighs rolling farther apart as he wormed his way more deeply into the leather. He was gratified to see the other man's eyes follow his movements; the sight of Methos' tongue barely wetting his lips tightened the muscles of Duncan's belly in a helpless knot of desire and unassuaged longing. "I meant what I said, Methos. I want you."

"And you know what you're doing, of course," Methos muttered. "I heard that, too."

"Damn it, if you'd actually ask me instead of trusting that those bloody Peeping Toms are infallible--"

"Fine," Methos snapped, stalking forward to perch on the coffee table next to the couch, a falcon eyeing its prey. "I'm asking."

"Yes," Duncan growled, "I've had male lovers. I spent years in armies and private guards, Methos, what did you think?"

"Who?"

Duncan chuckled at that, stretching lazily on the couch to bare his throat and belly to Methos. "I'm not going to kiss and tell. As I said, if you don't believe me...." He ran his tongue along his lips, a slow circle that left moisture gleaming on his mouth and Methos' breath coming faster. The other man's control held, though, and Duncan said more seriously, "I want you. I want to be your lover. I want to wake up with you and argue over who makes better coffee and whose turn it is to go after the croissants. I want to listen to whatever you're willing to tell me and wake you up at three in the morning to tell you the things that hurt too much to talk about at any other time. Sound permanent enough for you?"

"And when we can't stand each other anymore?" Methos grated, shifting forward to hover over Duncan, one knee between Duncan's, the other on the edge of the couch, and his hands on the back of the couch and the armrest. "When we rasp on each other's nerves like sandpaper on skin?"

Duncan's voice was very serious as he pointed out, "Both of us have investments across the globe. There will be times, probably more than we like, when we have to be apart. If you want a marriage, Methos, I'm willing."

"Are you?" Methos murmured, a purring, arousing near-threat. "Be very sure, Duncan, because I tell you now, I want one thing even more than I want you in my bed and in my life, and I'll damned well demand it as a wedding gift."

"I don't understand," Duncan said softly, suddenly chilled by those merciless eyes boring into him. "What do you want?"

"I want you to live. Have you figured out that list yet?"

"People who nearly lost me my head, according to you."

Methos kept his voice cold as he shifted his gaze to study the vulnerable throat so close to his teeth. "People who came looking for Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod, whether to kill you or to get you to save them."

Duncan couldn't argue that the men had been hunting him; he couldn't even deny that Amanda tended to show up with trouble hard on her heels, but-- "Kristin was a coincidence, Methos."

"No, MacLeod, she wasn't," came the incensed reply. "Kristin opened a branch in Seacouver because she had found out you were living there again. Sooner or later, she knew, you'd take a student and be vulnerable."

"What do you want me to do?" Duncan protested angrily, half-rising from his seat. "Should I have killed her sooner, then? Protected myself against an attack that might or might not come?"

"You knew what she was," Methos cut him off, wrath rising off his skin like a heat wave. "You never doubted she would try to kill Rich, did you?"

Methos let that sink in, noting how Duncan subsided against the couch without an argument or defense to his name. Before the Highlander could muster either, Methos said softly, "Yes, I want you. I want to take you here and now until you can barely think to breathe and all you can do is spread your thighs wider and groan for more. I want to wrap my mouth around your cock and discover what you taste like, whether you laugh or wail when I lick across your ribs and bite down. I want to know if your throat is salt and musk and fresh air, if biting your collarbone makes you arch back and beg for more."

He saw the Highlander sink further into the leather, eyes dilated pure black with arousal and fastened on his face and mouth as if there were nothing else in the world. Methos braced himself against his own need to pin Duncan's body into the cushions and went on in that same purring, menacing growl, "I want to feel your hips between my thighs, your cock buried in my ass while your belly flexes against my cock and your mouth feeds on mine until we don't know which of us is breathing for the other. I want your heat and your fire, I want your arms in the night and your arguments in the day, and I want you alive so that I can have all of that."

Still he didn't lower himself onto the offered exposed body, although he now believed Duncan's claims; the Scot's body had been entirely too open to the idea of being taken and taking in return. "What I want from you as a wedding present is very simple, but I don't know if you're willing to give it to me."

Watching Duncan swallow, shaken and trying to pull his mind away from pure lust, was one of the most erotic things Methos had seen in a very long time. Olive-gold skin flushed and ripe under the shadows of the firelight, his eyes barely ringed with that dark brown around the pupil, full lips parted for air or other things... Methos was so busy looking at Duncan that his words came as a surprise.

"What do you want?"

Methos pulled his attention back to the one promise he required. "Change your name."

"What?" Duncan stared at him, sure he'd misheard.

"Change your name," Methos repeated implacably, his hands tightening on the couch so that he wouldn't shake the man beneath him. "Your kinsman does it every so often, and for damned good reasons. Everyone wants the man who took the Kurgan. I guarantee you, MacLeod, there are headhunters you've never dreamed of who are looking for you. The man who took out Grayson, Luther, Kalas, St. Cloud...."

"Do you really think that changing my name will keep us out of the Game? I can't promise to stay alive, Methos, not with the Game going on."

Methos said softly, "You can promise to try. We both know that your name makes you a target. I don't want to see you die, Duncan." He pushed up to his feet before Duncan could reach for him. "You're drunk. I'll see you tomorrow."

"Methos--" Duncan was trying to struggle up out of the leather couch, inhibited by his remaining drunkenness as well as the fact that his lust had melted his muscles.

"You're far too drunk for this, Highlander." Methos was slinging his coat on and heading for the door. "I'll see you later."

"Damn it, Methos, don't--" The door closed gently but audibly, the latch clicking behind Methos as his presence faded away. Duncan finally whispered, "Damn." He pulled an arm over his eyes and tried to consider what had just happened and what to do next. But his thoughts only cycled through two sentences: _He didn't say no. But if I change my name, who am I?_

~0~0~0~0~0~0~

  
"Roberts."

The name was unfamiliar; the irritated voice wasn't. "Changed your name again, kinsman?" Duncan inquired, amused. "Would it have hurt you to send me that, too, with the phone number?"

He could hear Connor draw breath on the other end of the line, then pause before asking, "What's wrong?"

"Does something have to be wrong for me to call you?"

"Either you left Paris in a hurry, man, or it's four in the morning where you are. Either way, something would be wrong." Connor's voice was uncharacteristically gentle as he went on, "So. What is it?"

Duncan sighed at that and leaned back in his office chair, eyes half-closed in the dim light from the quay. "There are days I think you know me too well."

"It's a gift." His exasperating teacher waited a few seconds then calmly pointed out, "It's your phone bill, after all, but why don't you go ahead and tell me?"

"How do you do it?"

"What? Figure you out?"

"No. Answer to another name."

"So. That's what's riding you?" The distinctive clink of glass on glass made Duncan wonder what Connor had been drinking. Leather and wood creaked in the background before Connor casually asked, "A challenge?"

"Of sorts," Duncan told him, tired and sober by now. "Not for my head."

"And a straightforward challenge of your skills would be easier?" Now Connor sounded amused. "How long have you known me, Duncan?"

"Since 1625. I was thirty-three and had just--"

"--taken the hermit's head. I know. I've had five names since you've known me. Do you still trust me?"

"Of course." The answer came without thought. _No matter what his papers say, he's still Connor...._ Duncan paused, then smiled. "You and those damned oblique attacks."

Staccato laughter relaxed Duncan even before Connor pointed out, "They always get through your guard, too, kinsman. You haven't taken this many quickenings without being able to trust yourself, too, you know."

Duncan was more than tired enough to forget himself and say, "If you knew--"

Connor interrupted grimly and now he did sound irritated. "I do know. Amanda told me. You should have."

"Tell you what? That I went mad, Connor? That I did those things and liked it?" Duncan stood up, pacing at the limits of the phone cord as memories from the Dark Quickening flashed through him. Lies and carefully timed partial-truths that were even better than lies, dissent and discord, assault and abuse...and it had all felt so damned good at the time. Remembering it, though, bringing those memories back up, burned at his mind the way vomit burned at his throat as the acid and bile came up and he couldn't say anything for a long moment.

"That like so many of us, you found one quickening too many," Connor told him. "You're not the only one it's ever happened to, you know."

"You knew that could happen?" Duncan asked incredulously, his own temper bubbling up at the idea that Connor hadn't warned him about something that important.

"You should have," was the implacable reply. "I told you to always think, didn't I? The only things more important than an event are the implications and consequences of that event."

"I know that. So?"

"Darius." Connor waited out his clansman's stunned silence before saying more gently, "He was a friend of yours, I know, Duncan. I was fond of him, myself. But he was what he was; you should have paid more attention to what changed him. How did you miss that?"

"It... seemed a miracle," Duncan answered softly. "You're right. I'm a fool."

"No. Just dense sometimes," and Connor laughed when his student huffed in indignation but didn't deny it. "Next time, call me, hmm?"

"Oh, the way you called me when the Kurgan came to Manhattan?"

"That dark quickening was about three years ago, wasn't it?" his teacher inquired dryly.

"Damn it, Connor...." Helpless laughter caught him then as Duncan remembered that it had taken Connor three years to contact him. _Three years to realize I was still alive, that he hadn't taken the Prize, only an insanely powerful quickening--_ "How did you stay sane?" Duncan asked, perching on the edge of his desk.

"From the Kurgan? Simple enough. I wanted to win," Connor informed him grimly. "I wanted to win all of it, Duncan, not just the physical fight, but anything else that came. And I did."

Memories burned through him, the almost-quickening of defeating his double and opening his eyes, sane again, in a glowing pool of magic with the clan blade in his hands.... If Methos hadn't been standing there, waiting for him and clearly watching the same flickers of light, Duncan might have thought he was mad. As it was-- "Do you believe in magic, Connor?"

That drew that same quick, sharp laughter. "Of course. You mean you don't? You're too old to be so ignorant, Duncan MacLeod." In that same ironic voice Connor added, "Of course, I believe in a sharp sword, too. Any other questions, kinsman, or do you think you can sleep now?"

Duncan thought about it and realized that as usual, talking to Connor had clarified things even if he hadn't quite brought the subject up directly. "I can sleep now. Connor -- thanks."

The soft, rumbling laughter from the other side of the phone made Duncan smile. "I'll get the drinks and dinner out of you sometime, and you can tell me what brought this on."

"It's a deal," Duncan promised, barely remembering to hang up the phone before staggering towards the bed. _Tomorrow -- Today? Later_, he decided firmly -- would be soon enough to deal with everything else. He had time for one more jaw-splitting yawn before he pulled the covers up and slid down into sleep. The ideas that had been tumbling and skittering through his mind trailed him through his dreams; by the time he woke up, they had shaped themselves into plans.

~0~0~0~0~0~0~

  
The immortal buzz swept over Methos as he came up the stairs to his flat, but with the familiar tinge that marked it as the Highlander's. For a brief moment he debated which way to handle the younger man, still annoyed at himself for losing control and saying some of those things. Methos half-smiled at some of the ways he wanted to handle that lovely man. "Don't be more of a fool than you already are, hmm?" he chided himself quietly. "Being his friend has worked just fine for four years. And as drunk as he was, I doubt Duncan even remembers last night." He could hope so, anyway.

So he pulled his usual cynical amusement around him for armor before walking in and slinging the string bag full of vegetables onto the kitchen counter. He pulled a beer from the refrigerator and opened it. On a second thought, Methos took out another beer, twisted the top off, and carried both into the living room.

Duncan glanced up from the book he was reading, took the proffered bottle, and commented, "Thanks."

"So, what brings you to my humble abode?" Methos sprawled out on his couch and drained a third of the brew in one long, satisfying draught.

Duncan took a sip of his own beer and put it down on the floor beside his chair. "Three things, actually."

"That required breaking into my home?" The layers of sarcasm and humor blended smoothly into a friendly, ironic inquiry designed to keep things light.

"I believe your comment was, '_Mi casa es su casa_.' "

Dark brown eyes looked up from his place in whatever he was reading; Methos found himself wondering just what was so absorbing and resisted the temptation to ask. He'd simply sneak a peak at the title later. When he glanced back up from the mostly covered book, he found Duncan smiling at him with an unshadowed lightness that Methos hadn't seen since Kronos came back into his life the year before.

"So, what did you need my flat for when you have that so-chic barge?" Methos asked lightly, forcing down treacherous hopes and desires to regain his usual stability.

Duncan closed the book in his lap, tucking it down beside his leg, spine down. "Do you have a few minutes, or do we need to put that up first?"

"It's nothing that can't wait." He raised one eyebrow inquiringly, setting his beer bottle down on the end table as he braced himself for the latest question or problem. "So. Three things? Or did you want to sit and read?"

Duncan chuckled at some joke that Methos didn't see. "In a second. Actually I was going to ask you to help with this one."

"Look, Highlander, are we going to trade cryptic comments all day, or are you going to tell me what you're doing in my favorite reading chair?"

"Standing up," and Duncan suited the action to the words. He walked over and sat on the edge of coffee table, a position that reminded Methos uncomfortably of the night before. "It's not very complicated, Methos."

"This sounds promis--"

Duncan leaned in and placed a finger across his mouth. "Methos. Just this once, resist the temptation to sound wise, all-knowing, and sarcastic, will you?" Amusement gleamed wickedly in dark brown eyes. "And try not to lick that just yet, hmm?"

"Yet?" Methos managed to get out, leaning back just far enough to avoid temptation and hating to have to do it.

"I'm not drunk."

"No, you don't seem to be," the oldest immortal agreed, wondering where his breath had gone.

"Good," Duncan told him, still smiling. "That was the first thing."

"It was?" Methos held himself in place despite the strain of craning his head back at that angle. Without noticing it, he brought his arms in and wrapped them around himself, unconsciously protecting his vulnerable chest and belly. "That was simple."

Duncan shot him an amused look, tilting his head so that the afternoon sun painted light down sable hair. "The second thing is that I still want you. Are you still with me?"

"I meant what I said," Methos said quietly. He never looked away, though, still trying to see where this was going and wondering if he was hearing a shoe dropping or his heart pounding.

"I know." Without looking back, Duncan reached out for the book he'd left on the chair and dropped it next to Methos.

Methos glanced down out of habit to see the title, then asked incredulously, "_Baby Names for the New Century_?"

Duncan shrugged, smiling a little sheepishly. "It was the simplest way to get some ideas. So are you going to help me pick out a new name or not?"

"We'll think of something," Methos told him, a slow smile spreading across his face as relief began to seep through his body, spreading contentment down into the marrow of his bones, the depths of his muscles, until he thought he must be almost vibrating with it. His hands slid down from his chest to his thighs as the oldest immortal wondered, "So. Any other surprises up your sleeve, Duncan?"

"One or two." Broad shoulders lifted and fell in a shrug and that same not-quite-innocent amusement flashed through his eyes. "If we're going to do this, we might as well do it right. Where do you want to move after I get all the changes set in motion?"

"You're serious about this." He was still watching Duncan closely, wanting to be certain, needing to know that he other man had no doubts about what he was doing.

"Just promise me that you won't explain to Connor how you got me to do this when he couldn't," Duncan told him. The laughter in his eyes and voice reassured Methos, though. This was nothing the Highlander would regret in the middle of the night, then, or blame on him years down the road in whatever lovers' quarrels they might have.

Methos sat up and pulled Duncan off the coffee table, onto the edge of the couch, and down toward his mouth. "Consider it part of my wedding present," he offered, just before they quit talking at all.  


_~ ~ ~ finis ~ ~ ~_

  
Because Sleeps With Coyotes and I both wanted to write something from a certain Dead Can Dance song. The lyrics are below, for the interested.

"The Ubiquitous Mr. Lovegrove"   
\-- Dead Can Dance

I thought that you knew it all  
Well you've seen it ten times before.  
I thought that you had it down  
With both your feet on the ground.  
I love slow...slow but deep.  
Feigned affections wash over me.

Dream on, my dear,  
And renounce temporal obligations.  
Dream on, my dear,  
It's a sleep from which you may not awaken.

You build me up then you knock me down.  
You play the fool while I play the clown.  
We keep time to the beat of an old slave drum.  
You raise my hopes, then you raise the odds.  
You tell me that I dream too much--  
Now I'm serving time in disillusionment.

I don't believe you anymore...  
I don't believe you anymore.

 

I thought that I knew it all;  
I'd seen all the signs before.  
I thought that you were the one.  
In darkness my heart was won.

You build me up then you knock me down.  
You play the fool while I play the clown.  
We keep time to the beat of an old slave drum.  
You raise my hopes, then you raise the odds.  
You tell me that I dream too much--  
Now I'm serving time in a domestic graveyard.

I don't believe you anymore...  
I don't believe you.

Never let it be said I was untrue.  
I never found a home inside of you.  
Never let it be said I was untrue.  
I gave you all my time.


End file.
